Facing an unprecedented crisis, IT World Canada, a beacon of technology journalism, is on the brink of closure. This poses a critical question: Without IT World Canada, who will narrate Canada’s tech story?
After decades of serving the Canadian tech industry, IT World Canada needs help to survive.
As of midnight tonight, the company is suspending publication for the first time in its more than 40-year history, announcing that unless the company finds an investor in the next few days or weeks, it may have to shut down for good.
For more than 40 years, IT World Canada and its publications have told the story of the Canadian tech industry. More than 30 years ago it launched what is now CanadianCIO, to tell the story of the emerging new role of technology as a strategic force in Canadian business. The company was the first major technology publication to go fully digital. It has launched the careers of several top journalists and it is a media partner that supports the efforts of many groups that are serving the Canadian technology industry.
With millions of visits and over 250 thousand subscribers, this iconic company publishes on four daily news sites including ITWorldCanada.com, ITBusiness.ca, ChannelDailyNews.com, and a French language publication in Quebec, DirectionInformatique.com.
It also publishes CanadianCIO and a number of other targeted publications and newsletters. It has many hit podcasts, including CybersecurityToday and Hashtag Trending, both of which are consistently in the top 5 per cent of podcasts in North America. Its articles are also syndicated on several other major publishers and association sites in Canada and worldwide.
Despite all of these accomplishments, the company continues to struggle for survival. But somehow, stubbornly, it has held on while other publishers have failed.
“I never even thought that I’d be in the publishing industry,” Jim Love, the remaining owner of IT World Canada reflected, “but I met this incredible person, Fawn Annan, more than a decade ago and she convinced me that somehow two individuals, neither of them with any large amount of capital, could rescue this iconic firm from bankruptcy. And somehow we did.”
“And in those 10 years under Fawn Annan’s leadership, we defied all odds and managed to survive. After her death last year, the team and her vision carried on. But it is possible that this time, our luck has run out.”
“We still have a strong readership and we’ve evolved new approaches that have gained huge interest,” Love noted, “but without additional investment, we simply cannot ‘thread the needle’ to get through this incredibly tough period.”
“How little we need to survive would surprise you,” said Love. “But with one individual as owner of a private company, there are limits to the funds we can raise.”
Love also noted the new move from American tech companies to bring their marketing spending back to their U.S. head offices, ignoring the Canadian market.
“As well, the Canadian government has been of no help at all,” said Love. “Ironically, we are asked to be a media partner for government programs and many organizations that get government funding, but we are routinely neglected in government programs, even those that fund much larger publications.”
Last year, Love notes that the company was asked to be a media partner for a large event in Montreal with a budget of close to a million dollars, funded by the federal government. “We didn’t get a cent in support and they even asked us to pay our own expenses in covering this event. Everyone else – the venue, the caterers, the staff – all of them got paid. Not a cent for a publisher. They didn’t even place an ad.”
The company is struggling to negotiate with its bank and creditors, but without a surprisingly modest investment, the company simply cannot survive. Love has reached out to potential investors and the company has published this open letter appealing to the government, the tech industry, and other potential sources of investment. Failing that, the company may have to shut down for good.
“If that happens,” Love noted, “who will tell the stories of the Canadian technology community? Time and again, the audience we’ve attracted and the awards and accolades we’ve won have proven the need for a strong Canadian voice and those unique stories that our audience wants to hear, not some ‘maple-washed’ version from a large U.S. publisher.”
Will that voice be missed? As Love noted. “Ask yourself. Is a U.S. publisher with a page on Canada going to tell the stories we tell? Not likely.”
Will this iconic Canadian voice survive? Stay tuned.
For more information, you can contact me at [email protected] and at least for the next few weeks, I’ll be continuing what is now my personal podcast, Hashtag Trending.
